The Transformational Power of Empathy

SUMMARY

“Are you okay?” is a great thing to ask people. However, if you ask that question but you listen to their answer through your own lens of understanding and what it is that you are going through in that particular period in your life, you might actually miss what’s going on for them.

This week, I want to introduce you to a power that's going to help to move those misunderstandings out of the way by unpacking with you the transformational power of empathy.

TRANSCRIPT

Do you sometimes find it hard to see things from other people's perspective where you are focused on what you are going through in that moment, and therefore, you misunderstand what could be going on for that other person?

That happens a lot because we are wired to be self-centered, and just like what we talked about last week, how we navigate emotions is not always the same as other people do.

Well, stick with me because in this week's episode I want to introduce you to a power that's going to help to move those misunderstandings out of the way.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, VUCA Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation about being more socially aware by unpacking with you the transformational power of empathy.

As I'm recording this, it's the 31st of July here in Australia and I've just finished the month of Ks for R U O K. In the last couple of weeks, I stepped out of the normal conversation to help raise awareness around suicide and to help prevent it. It's funny, though, as I've been going through that, the topics I'm talking about in the regular conversation match up.

Last week, we talked about being more socially aware of what could be going on in those people around us and having a more wide-angled view rather than just focusing on where it is that we are going. Doing this helps us have greater conversations and more mutually beneficial relationships, reduces misunderstanding and, therefore, eliminates a lot of the conflict that takes up bandwidth and energy in your day.

What I want to do now is to continue that conversation by talking about how you can seek to understand other people in a different way.

“Are you okay?” is a great thing to ask people. However, if you ask that question but you listen to their answer through your own lens of understanding and what it is that you are going through in that particular period in your life, you might actually miss what’s going on for them.

Then, as you ask those questions that I talked about a couple of weeks ago, you’ll be asking them out of context, and the encouragement that you give might be confusing for the other person.

Communication with other human beings is always going to continue.

It doesn't matter if we have AI or chat GPT or any of those things; we are still going to have communication with other people.

So, this special ingredient that comes to those who are very socially aware puts you on the front foot and allows you to communicate without all that conflict.

To understand this power, you need to have a look at what it is and what it isn’t, because even having a misunderstanding at that level creates difficulty in being able to capitalise on this amazing skill.

The power that we're talking about is the power of empathy. Unfortunately, it gets mixed up with other particular terms and, therefore, misinterpreted in its use. So, let's have a look at what it's not.

Firstly, it's not apathy.

Apathy at one end of the spectrum says:

“I don't really care.”

“I am not invested in it in any way, shape, or form."

“It doesn't take up any bandwidth in my brain."

"I'm not concerned about anything that's going on there.”

Obviously, apathy is not something that's going to help you to have great conversations and relationships with other people. It's a state where you just aren't going to get any information because it's just going to go to the keeper because you're not interested.

So that's one end of the spectrum.

The other end of the spectrum is sympathy.

Sympathy says:

“Oh, I see what you're going through there; I'm listening to you, and I feel sorry for you.”

Unfortunately, feeling sorry for someone can have a negative effect on what you do to support them. In fact, it can also help them to feel less than because you're feeling sorry for them, and feeling sorry for someone is not enough.

What you need to do is to come into the middle of that, not to the point where you don't care or feel sorry, but to the point of empathy.

Empathy says:

“I want to understand how you might be feeling right now.”

Having empathy doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to do anything about what you hear. However, what it says to the other person is:

“I care about you. I’m interested in listening to you. I want to walk a mile in your shoes and try to the best of my ability to understand what you're going through."

Then and only then can you understand and, therefore, interact with that person in a way that's going to really support them.

If you're just thinking about what's going on for you and not them, you’re going to read it the way you would read it. As we've talked about in the previous weeks, empathy allows you to seek understanding.

To do that, you need to ask questions and then you need to listen without judgment and avoid making your mind up about what you think it means.

You also need to use reflective listening in your conversation that says:

"So, what I'm hearing here is this _________, is that right?" until you get to the point where there's a mutual understanding of how the other person is feeling.

Once you have reached that point, you’re able to go to those next steps of offering encouragement and encouraging them to take some action that's going to support that. Because you understand how they're feeling in that moment and why, you will be able to be there as a support and a guide along their journey moving forward.

So, empathy is not “I don't care,” and it's not “I feel sorry for you”; it’s: “I want to understand.”

In a lot of conversations that you see, particularly on social media, nobody seems to want to understand what other people are going through. They just see it through the way they understand it, and that's why the comments go backwards and forwards, and people are actually feeling worse about the interaction because it's being read through the eyes of the receiver in the way that they interpret it.

Let's all be more empathetic.

Let's all seek to understand.

Let’s all walk a mile in the shoes of the other person and allow them to help us understand.

To do that, you need to start by being focused on someone else. It's not about forgetting self at all costs or just being about the other person. No, not at all. Being focused on the other person means having an equal conversation where:

I have an opinion and you have an opinion.

They (our opinions) might differ, but it doesn’t make either of us wrong.

This is because our opinion is based on our different experience and on what we are going through in that moment.

Being a person that develops more empathy is going to allow you to have much more enjoyable conversations and relationships with people every single day. It's going to reduce the stress and conflict that comes out of these misunderstandings, and it's going to allow people to work together more harmoniously, which means they're going to get more done, and those results that you're after will come a lot sooner.

So, embrace this transformational power of empathy.

If it's a skill that you lack, then step one is to develop it.

To start that you need to listen more without judgment, hear what's being said and not being said, question in a reflective way to check in and make sure that you understand what might be going on.

Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week as we continue this conversation around social intelligence by looking at situational awareness, and having a bigger picture view, so that you can understand more as you go forward.

I'll see you then.